“All to the good, he can look at engines. Nowadays they say everyone must learn to drive a car, like riding a bike in our day. And, Andreu, you do like driving, don’t you?”
Frankly, I didn’t mind one way or the other, but faced with the tedious prospect of staying at home with nothing to do and going out with my father, I preferred to accompany him even though I was tired and beginning to doze off.
19
And so, reluctantly to begin with, and then as a habit that found favour with both Mother and myself, Father started to take me in the coach to the settlement, where we would wait for the siren blast and the women to leave, and as soon it was full, Father drove off as darkness fell over the local roads.
The women accepted me unreservedly, with alacrity, as if it was natural for a son to accompany his father. They all wanted me to sit by their side, so I’d flit from one end of the coach to the other, always in a window seat, and watch how the row of plane trees appeared, then immediately disappeared from sight, salvaged from the gloom by sudden beams from the coach headlights, concertina’d into a single mass by our speed that shortened the distances between them.
The smell of burnt oil, industrial grease and body sweat filled the coach. The women combed their hair, changed their coats, rubbed handkerchiefs over their faces and some even took a bottle of eau de cologne from their baskets and squirted a few drops on their hair, necks or cleavages. When they unbuttoned their coats or blouses to wipe away the sweat or rub in some scented water, they gave me a cheeky smile, sometimes winked and even made remarks that brought a grin to my face:
“Close your eyes, handsome, you shouldn’t be seeing this!”
“But he’s a little innocent…!”
“Not if he takes after his father…!”
“It’s in his blood,” they laughed.
“It’s been passed on, like the colour of his eyes!”
Once they’d relapsed into an exhausted silence, one of the eldest started singing songs from the old days, and when we were nearing the end of the ride they always prayed an Our Father and three Hail Marys in remembrance of the three working women who’d died, beheaded by an unknown murderer on the path the women used to take through the woods before the bosses organized a transport service. As they finished, they’d say: “May Saint Anthony save us from all evil and mortal sin, Saint Joseph allow us a decent death and Saint Pancras keep us in work.”
“But don’t go giving us longer hours,” added the younger girls, who were the one who prayed the least.
The same girls always sat next to the driver, my father, the ones who were nicest to me, Gracieta Rossic and Aurora Maions, both blondes with round faces, red cheeks and big green or blue eyes and breasts that seemed enormous, oversize and swollen. Both exuded enormous energy that had them bubbling away all the time, bantering, laughing, tidying their hair or blouses, painting their lips or eyes, changing their worktime espadrilles for high heels.
The women sometimes argued at the back of the coach and one of the oldest would laugh and shout: “I agree with what that comrade said!”
And that would end the argument and they’d all burst out laughing as if she had uttered a magic formula. It must have looked as if I’d not cottoned on, because the one next to me, after a repeat episode, told me: “Before the war, we had meetings, even mass meetings in the factory two or three times a week with the unions and the committee. We women were the loudest, the most revolutionary, and those of us who didn’t have a clue about politics, when it was time to vote, would shout those words out to support the comrade most in the know.”
If someone responded, vigorously waving their fist in the air: “Long live labour, down with capital!” the others shut her up immediately: “Be quiet, stupid! You can’t say that now! Do you want to get us into trouble? You never know who might be listening. Remember the slogans on the posters: ‘Spies are watching,’ ‘The enemy is always listening.’”
But I could see they were all tittering to themselves.
Sometimes there were incidents that appeared harmless enough that in fact revealed the vast extent of the invisible, submerged past, doomed to oblivion and destruction. Like the time when one of the older workers sang, quietly, almost inaudibly, so only those of us sitting near her could hear:
The militia men’s rope sandals
are worth a sight more
than the shiny leather boots
butcher Queipo de Llano wore.
Horrified, the women nearby put their hands over her mouth to shut her up. A heavy silence descended that lasted the whole journey.
I repeated these phrases to my mother, and she’d repeat them slowly as if she wanted to memorize them, then she’d comment: “They’re mad, they’re mad! They’re all stark raving… They’ll get your Father into trouble making that kind of joke.”
And she’d add: “Women lose their minds more easily than men.”
She spoke as if she didn’t include herself in that category of stupid women, as if she belonged to another class of women. And then she asked, as if my opinion was valuable: “Do you think Napkin Lolita or the wife of the owner of Els Boixets could stand eight or nine hours behind the machines in the factories with us? That’s what those scatterbrains and your dad wanted. They went on and on about how the revolution wouldn’t be worth it until the bosses started working alongside the workers. They wanted to see all the factory owners, and especially their wives, transformed into workers, in blue overalls or dirty housecoats with a big basket, tying threads or placing bobbins on shuttles. How simple-minded can you be! And you see what they achieved, nothing at all, and they’re lucky to have come out of it alive.”
She looked up at the ceiling, and then down again, before launching into an interrogation: “Who did your father speak to most? Who sat next to him? Did Gracieta Rossic keep sidling up to him? Did Gracieta go off by herself when they reached town or did they wait for the other women? What did they say when they left? Was it only goodbye? Who did Aurora Maions go off with? Were they showing off their cleavage or did they wear scarves round their necks? And nylons? Did you notice if they were wearing nylons? Were they laughing all the time? Did anyone say anything to your father? And what did Gracieta have to say…?”
I told her what I’d seen, but took care never to mention Gracieta Rossic or Aurora Maions because I’d noticed that they were the ones who most preyed on her mind. It was a fact that Father bantered most with them and one day I even saw him put his arm around Gracieta’s waist and playfully nuzzle her neck, but I didn’t tell Mother because I thought I shouldn’t, that he’d done nothing wrong, it was part of his leisure time when Father tried to be the young lad he’d once been and didn’t want to let slip forever. I even sympathized with my father’s fun that made my mother hit the roof. It was like when I was with my mates and I behaved differently to what I was like when I was at home with my parents, which didn’t mean I was different and didn’t love them anymore, it was merely that there are times and places when our parents, or our mates, or whoever, get on our nerves. How come Mother, who was so feisty on every front, so brave and determined, didn’t grasp something so straightforward: that we all need to spend time with somebody slightly different at some stage in the day or in our lives? As she was always so busy and never left the house on Sundays, she knew nothing about the delights of the theatre or cinema and didn’t understand how other people’s lives can dazzle and seduce us.
When they saw me with my father, Gracieta Rossic and Aurora Maions would come over, pinch my cheek and say the same silly things to me the other women said, but in a different tone, that I thought sounded different, as if they had ridiculous siren voices, and then I knew it was time to leave my seat and go and sit at the back with the older women: “Hey, handsome, you can stay with your father, if you want.”